“You kept doing this thing, every time we talked. You’d get scared and be about to hang up, but then…it was like you forced yourself not to be scared anymore. To keep talking to me. And every conversation I’d push a little harder, ask you to do more, and you’d…keep coming back for more. Over and over again and…Fuck, Annie. Watching that, being a part of that kind of bravery. It was exciting. Addictive.”
“You didn’t laugh?” I asked. “You didn’t hang up and laugh at me.”
“Never.” It was a solemn vow from him and my nipples got hard. My body wet. “Every time you called me I felt so damn lucky.”
He finished his glass of champagne and stepped over toward me. His hands on his hips. “Now, why me?”
I stared at him blankly. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. Why’d you do that with me?”
I took a sip of champagne and it fizzed through me, so I took another. And then one more. “I like your voice. And…” I held out my glass. “I like your champagne.”
Silent, he poured more champagne into my glass.
“Tell me, Annie. The truth.”
Oh, the truth. Wouldn’t that be something? What would happen if I just opened my mouth and told him the truth?
“You asked me if I was okay. Every time,” I said, watching the bubbles explode in my glass instead of watching him. “And you apologized. And you seemed to…care about me and I was a total stranger to you. I felt safe,” I said.
“You are safe.”
I gave him an arch look. That was not the song he was singing earlier, urging me to leave the trailer park.
“With me,” he clarified. “You are safe. I won’t hurt you, Annie.”
I think I’m already hurt, I thought. I think I’m bleeding and I don’t even know it.
This was, without a doubt, the nicest thing any man had ever done for me. Ever. The champagne, the disgusting cheese. It was all so kind. It was the most trouble. The most care.
And I didn’t deserve it.
I was lying.
I was married.
I knew I should just leave. Hadn’t I gotten what I wanted? That something amazing I knew he’d be able to give me—I’d gotten it. He’d touched me. Kissed me the way that a woman should be kissed. With passion and care. Some of the ugliness of my life before was wiped away by the last few hours.
But to accept more…it was too greedy.
Wanting more only got me punished. Wanting more got me hurt. I had to carefully calibrate what I wanted to what I deserved.
A penny more, an inch more, and it would rain something awful down on my head.
I’d let myself have this terrible, terrible thing. And I should end it. Now. Before it got worse. Before I wanted even more. Before…before I ruined everything and told him.
“I have a question for you,” he said. He came over to my chair, and with one hand, he picked me up and set me down on the table and then he pushed in between my legs, bracing his hands on the table beside me.
He was crowding me and I wanted to push him away and pull him closer. All at the same time. I pulled in a deep breath and my breasts touched his chest. The robe had split over my legs and I could feel the denim of his jeans on the insides of my thighs.
He tilted my face up so my eyes met his.
“What are you scared of?” he asked.
DYLAN
Dylan knew fear. He knew how it smelled. What it tasted like—the bitter, coppery taste of blood and adrenaline in the back of the throat. And he knew what it looked like when someone was trying not to be scared.
After he turned sixteen he’d had four long years learning every inch, every side of fear.
“I’m not scared,” Annie whispered.
“And now you’re lying.”
She shook her head and he eased his grip up under her chin.
“Are you scared of me?”
She shook her head, that white-blond hair falling over her eyes. Dylan reached up and brushed it away, taking in all her softness. Her skin. Her hair. All of it. Her entire body communicated her fear. The white-knuckled grip on the champagne glass, the way her eyes wouldn’t stay locked on his. Her shoulders were up at her ears.
“Then who are you scared of?”
“No one,” she breathed. “I’m fine. Just…maybe nervous.”
Why the fuck was she lying? He’d kicked women out of his life for far less than lying to his face. If